Wrecked
by darkwinggirl
Summary: "He was a ruin. A shadow of the man he'd been when she knew him; in far worse shape than he'd been in even on the day they met. Then, he'd been bruised, sore, hollowed out with sorrow, confused by his fall, but whole. The man in front of her was in shreds." Loki/OC. Sequel to "Damaged".
1. Torture

**A/N:**

**"Wrecked" is a SEQUEL to the story "Damaged", which can be found by clicking on my profile, or going to fanfiction DOT net/s/7076434/1/Damaged .**

**"Damaged" should be read first. It is the story of how Loki, after his fall into the vortex, recovered the use of his body and mind with the help of a human girl named Rachel. It was written before _The Avengers _came out, but fits neatly between _Thor_ and _The Avengers_.  
**

**"Wrecked" was written and published before the release of _Thor: The Dark World_. It will almost certainly turn out to be incompatible with that movie, so consider this a deviating timeline after _The Avengers._**

* * *

In the year since Loki left her, Rachel had considered using the coin many times. Silly impulses, for the most part. They came when she was off her guard. Like when she woke in the middle of the night and stretched out a casual arm, expecting it to fall across Loki's cool, narrow ribcage, only to find herself alone in bed.

Or when practicing for work, watching her short fingers twinkle along the piano keys. She'd smile at the memory of Loki's long, rake-thin body perched beside her on the bench, boyish fascination glowing from his sculpted features, and consider calling him back for one more session.

Or when she walked alone at night and caught a glimpse of someone, any old most-likely-harmless person, closer than two blocks away. She'd remember the attack she'd suffered in her apartment, and her blood would scream in her ears: _Use it! They can't hurt you if he's here!_

But Loki was a god. A real one. And he'd promised the coin would only work once. So Rachel had treasured it, saved it for a true time of need, an emergency only magic could solve. It was a genie's lamp with two wishes used up, and its final use had to be a good one.

The time came.

Rachel's brother Rob lay on a hospital bed, surrounded by a nurses and a crash cart, quietly dying.

He'd been unconscious for a month, ever since Loki's attack on Manhattan, actually. One of the Leviathan monsters had tried to make a sharp turn near the apartment Rachel and her brother shared, and it had grazed the building. A piece of rebar, pulled down with immense force by the weight of a refrigerator-sized chunk of concrete, had sliced through Rob's waist from behind like a scythe, severing his spine, all his lower back muscles, and his intestines.

Still, Rachel had waited, because for a time, the surgeons had been hopeful. Her brother wouldn't walk again, but he would likely survive, since he'd gotten through the critical first forty-eight hours.

But infection set in.

Staring at the thin ring of scar tissue around her pinky finger, the digit that had regrown from a stump in two weeks, thanks to Loki's interference, Rachel decided it was time to use her wish. She'd get one more medical miracle.

One more glimpse of that ghostly skin, those ancient green eyes.

She pricked her thumb and rubbed the coin with her blood, front and back.

Turned it in her hand three times.

Said the magic word: "Loki."

And nothing happened.

Nothing at all.

The hallway grew cold as she waited, an hour, two, Rob was cresting, his heartbeat reappearing again and again, there was still time…

But Loki had told one more lie.

He never came.

And Rachel's brother died.

Should it have been a surprise that Loki had failed to keep his promise? There was no pretending, now, that Rachel didn't know exactly what he was. _The_ Loki. God of Mischief, God of Lies, mass murderering psychopath.

Maybe he was dead. Executed for his crimes.

She'd seen the cell phone footage – everybody had – of Loki in chains and muzzle, heartbreaking gaze fixed on his enormous blonde brother, just before they'd burst into the sky in a snap of rainbow light.

Rachel doubted it, though. She'd gotten herself good and educated on Norse mythology, and knew that the Aesir court denizens forgave Loki's mischief as regularly as they passed the salt.

The rejection stung; the disappointment left her mouth dry and sour-tasting.

It was like two deaths instead of one.

Still, Rachel didn't miss work that night. Missing performances, no matter how good the excuse, was career suicide on Broadway. Especially in the orchestra pit, where a pianist was as easy to replace as a violin string. Plus, work was a welcome distraction.

The show was _My Fair Lady_, and it pushed three hours. Three hours in the pit, staring at the black-and-white notes, the black-and-white keys.

Rachel made it two and a half hours, then grief and exhaustion set in. There was a warping, swirling sensation, and all the white turned green. The black pooled into a set of small, bottomless pupils set in emerald eyes. There was a muffled scream. A ripping pain in her shoulders.

The fit passed, and Rachel found herself being pulled to her feet by the cellist. She'd fainted in the middle of "Get Me to the Church on Time," which was, thank god, a loud and busy enough song that it could handle a dropped piano part.

Her alternate made it to the bench before "Without You," and she was sent home, shaking and nauseated, crying quietly.

On the subway, it happened again.

Green everywhere. Eyes. That scream, a desperate, crunching, back-of-the-throat sound, the sound a movie chainsaw victim might make if her mouth were covered in duct tape. Again, there was the ripping sensation in Rachel's shoulders, and this time it spread to the back of her head.

Instinctively, Rachel wrenched forward, away from the pain, and she regained consciousness on her feet in the middle of the subway car. At least she'd waked in time for her stop.

At night, the sensation came three more times. Worse each time – the screams more gut-churning, the pain more acute, as if she were being flayed, and the eyes burning further into her.

Pleading, manic, tear-filled eyes.

Each time the wave of sensation came, she tensed and fought, yanked herself from the hallucination, and came back to reality panting and sweating.

It could have been a side effect of the accumulated trauma of the last month, the last year. A reaction to the awful minutes on the phone with her parents, telling them about Rob, the loss of hope.

But she knew it wasn't.

This was magic. She knew its scent now. Magic gone wrong. The useless coin still sat in her pajama pocket, warm to the touch, and she considered throwing it out the window.

Instead, she went to sleep with it clutched in her fist.

Asleep and dreaming, she was unprepared for the next wave of pain. It swamped her, confused her, and her swimming brain seemed to spin. Instead of staring into those desperate eyes, she seemed to be staring out of them; she saw herself, as if in a mirror.

Had she always looked like this? So thin and small and frightened, so lost?

The pain wracked her; she lurched forward, towards her own image, and her image reached towards her, as frantic for relief as she was.

She felt a rush like warm wind, and a pop, like she'd stepped through a barrier, thin as a soap bubble.

Then she was whole again.

The pain had passed; she was standing up, and staring out of her own eyes.

But the green eyes hadn't vanished. They stayed in front of her, wide, red-veined, swollen with insanity.

Loki's eyes.

She was with him.

Too late. Too late for Rob, for her wish, but here was Loki, pressed against her, face to face, belly to belly, toe to toe, and her hands were on his cheeks.

Their foreheads touched. Loki's skin, though cool, was soaked in sweat, and as Rachel pulled back, he slumped forward, exhausted.

Rachel took in her surroundings. Gasped.

The scale of the place nearly sent her to her knees.

She stood on the center of a polished obsidian dais which appeared to be a mile wide. Pillars the size of the Statue of Liberty towered on either side of her. Chains stretched from them – one to each of Loki's wrists, pulling his arms wide, exposing his bare chest. A third chain extended from the ceiling, hundreds of feet above them, attached to a metal collar around his neck.

They were underground, in a cavern large enough to hold Manhattan and all its skyscrapers. Indeed, it seemed to be filled with mountains. Rachel and Loki were at the top of the tallest one, in the middle of the cavern, and other mountains, slightly lower, surrounded them. Each had a flattened top and two pillars. Rachel couldn't see far enough to be sure, but she would have bet that between each set of pillars stood a prisoner like Loki.

The pillars were torches; wide red flames at the top of each one lit the enclosed space, and their smoke mostly hid the distant stone sky.

Rachel took all this in quickly, then her focus was back on the man in front of her. The god, the Aesir, the prisoner.

He was a ruin. A shadow of the man he'd been when she knew him; in far worse shape than he'd been in even on the day they met. Then, he'd been bruised, sore, hollowed out with sorrow, confused by his fall, but whole.

The man in front of her was in shreds. Was nearly dead. Would be better off dead.

His prone position exposed the gauntness of his chest. She'd known him to be thin; now he was near starvation.

He still wore the muzzle from when he'd been carted off Earth in Thor's custody; was it possible it hadn't been removed this whole time?

That he'd been tortured was beyond question; how, Rachel couldn't guess. Long red welts that looked like dripping paint rolled off his shoulders; his back was bent towards her, and she could see the damage to his upper back was much worse. It looked like someone had thrown a bucket of acid on him. The raw wounds extended up over his neck, onto his head. Fully half his hair, the back half, was gone, burned off, and the remainder hung long, limp, and greasy.

Every few inches, his skin was marked with pairs of swollen puncture wounds. Vampire bites, except instead of blood, each hole dripped with an opaque yellow ooze. The wounds stood up like bee stings. There had to be three dozen of them, and those were just what Rachel could see on his exposed upper half.

Loki's face, also marked by the vampire bites, and covered in sweat and smoke, had clean tear tracks in inch-wide vertical stripes, like war paint. His eyes themselves were worse than they'd seemed in the dreams. Bloodshot, wild, mad.

Rachel stared, looking for a hint of recognition, and couldn't tell what she found. The eyes rolled; she could see the whites, or what had once been the whites, all the way around.

Blood dripped from Loki's manacled wrists; the skin below the manacles was stretched, and above them, piled and raw.

He'd practically pulled his own hands off.

All this took time to process. Rachel could hardly believe the sight. Believe that a man, no matter what he'd done, could be abandoned in this cavern, in this condition. He couldn't even stand. The three chains were all that held him upright, biting his skin and pulling his neck at a painful angle.

She wouldn't have wished this on the worst human criminal. Not on Hitler or Stalin or Osama Bin Laden. Imprisonment, yes, execution, she could understand. But protracted torture, abandonment in hell, especially for someone as delicate and sensitive as Loki – no, it was too much to believe.

She had to touch him, but hardly knew where to start. Her instinct was to graze the back of her hand over his cheek, but at the contact, he flinched and reared like a horse touched by a hot coal. The sound, that awful crunch, came from the back of his throat.

Then, cautiously, just to find out what she was dealing with – and letting him watch her move her fingers towards him, a centimeter at a time – she gave the lightest possible brush of her fingertips to one set of puncture wounds.

Loki's stomach muscles worked in and out. Tears squeezed themselves from his eyes, and Rachel knew if he could open his mouth, he would be gasping.

She started to raise her fingers up, to get a better look at the liquid on them, but her fingertips almost immediately began to sting, then burn – burn like the time she'd accidentally gotten a chili pepper flake in her eye. She hissed and blew on them, and when that didn't help, frantically wiped the liquid on her nightshirt. Her fingertips were left burning, and she sucked on them, then blew, and found it barely helped at all.

God. It was some kind of acid. And it was inside him, swelling beneath his skin, burning him all over. God, no, please.

"We're going to get you down," she heard herself say, though she couldn't think how. He was far stronger than she; if he couldn't break the chains, what could she do? "Baby, don't cry, don't cry, I'm here. I'm going to help you. I won't let them hurt you any more, you hear me? It's me, it's Rachel, do you remember? I helped you before. You're going to be okay. Shhh, don't fight, let me… let me think."

The muzzle first. Perhaps if he could talk, he could tell her what to do. Anything, she'd do anything he said. She'd jump off this mountaintop if it would relieve his pain. What he'd done to her city, to her people, to her own brother, was a distant memory, if that. All she could see was this moment, his agony, his need for her help.

Trying not to touch Loki's skin, she went to work on the muzzle. There was a catch in the back, and she pried at it, wiping tears off the inside of her elbow at the sound of his muffled screams. She was forced to get a good look at the burned back of his head. The skin appeared to be melting; she felt that with one hard wipe, she could slough it away, baring the skull.

There was a simple double-button system, like the release on the handle of a baby carrier. She had to squeeze with all her strength, and Loki howled in his throat; Rachel's knees wobbled, and she feared she might faint again. But at last there was a hiss of moving pneumatics; a back panel of the muzzle bisected itself, and then the whole catch lobstered away, folding towards Loki's ears until only the front part, covering the mouth, remained.

It had sat on his face a long time, and was embedded in the skin. Pulling it away was hard work, and cost both of them more tears, but at last, the metal peeled free, leaving an angry, deep impression in the soft skin around Loki's mouth.

His mouth.

Which, beneath the muzzle, was sewn shut.

Sewn with a thick leather thong, crudely, in wide-spaced stitches that had been pulled too tight. Each stitch hole had stretched open over time into a hollow oval, so it looked like Loki's teeth were on the outside. Through the holes, Rachel could see his irritated gums.

He was mutilated. Permanently disfigured.

Rachel's heart stopped.

"Baby," she said again, and now she was really sobbing, right in time with him. Their chests hitched together; his head fell forward, and she couldn't tell if it was from exhaustion or shame. His hair mixed itself in hers.

There was no tool to cut the thong with. It was knotted heavily at each end, and there was nothing to do but go to try to untie the knots. To hurt Loki more with her touch, to pull at the already ghastly wounds.

Her small fingers went to work, and at each motion, Loki shuddered in pain, though Rachel imagined he was trying to cooperate. After each flinch, he let his head fall back to her waiting hands. Once, she kissed his forehead, and he didn't fight it.

"Who did this to you?" she whispered as the first knot came free. "Who?"

"I did."

The voice was loud, obnoxiously so, and male. It rang with nobility, and had a hint of an English accent.

Rachel turned and found herself staring at a tall, blonde, heavily armored man. His red cape caught a rising thermal and billowed dramatically behind him as he stomped towards her. If she hadn't been sick with pity and fury, the sight of him, nearly two feet taller than her and handsome as a god, would have impressed her.

In his right hand there was an enormous, square-headed hammer.

Rachel would have known him anywhere, even if she hadn't seen the videos.

Thor.


	2. Rescue

"And who are you, Midgardian?"

Thor was striding quickly towards her, but he slowed as his eyes lit on Loki. The swaggering posture wavered, drooped, and Rachel saw the breath leave his body.

"Blood of the ancients," he said. A curse, not directed at Rachel. "Loki. Brother."

Thor's blue eyes were suddenly small with pain, and he let the hammer drop to the ground, where it cracked the smooth rock. Its impact wave knocked Rachel down and made Loki arch his back.

"How has it gone this far?" asked Thor, and he stood there, staring.

As if he were helpless. Rachel could have clawed his face off.

She'd never been angry, this kind of angry, in her life, and she sprang to her feet and ran right up to the huge man, trying to scream at him, though the impact of her words was lost in her choking sobs.

"_Why_?" she cried. "Why would you do this to him? Your _brother_? You abandoned him here? Sewed his mouth shut? Tortured him – those are _burns_! What the hell his wrong with you? And what – what are those, snake bites? He's dying!"

Thor's gaze found its way to her. He had continued to stare at his brother, and it clearly took some effort for him to focus on Rachel, who felt like a fly buzzing around a bear. Her small fists had pounded Thor's armor, and he hadn't appeared to notice.

Now he blinked, shook his head, made an obvious effort to register her existence.

"You have not answered me, mortal," he said at last. "Your name. And your purpose here, aiding a prisoner of the Allfather."

"My name is Rachel Honeycutt," she spat, "And I don't care whose prisoner he is, you can't treat people this way. You bet I'm here to aid him. And if you stop me, I'll…"

Her small fist rose again, sitting pathetically at the end of a straw-thin wrist, and she could have cried at her weakness.

She didn't know what to expect from Thor. A blow, a laugh, a bolt of lightning? His clear gaze pierced her. Then, to her surprise, he stretched out a hand, wrapped it around the back of her head, and pulled her to his armor-plated chest.

A hug.

The god of thunder was hugging her.

He released her almost immediately and smoothed her hair.

"You remind me of a dear friend," he said. "I do not know how you came to be my brother's ally, nor how you managed to cross the barrier between worlds. But I know your pain. It kills you to see him suffer. It does the same to me. It was not my choice to send Loki here, and were it in my power, I would free him."

Rachel's limbs were trembling. She felt she was on the verge of passing out. "Let me untie his mouth. At least. Please."

There was a long hesitation, and a few longing glances at Loki, before Thor gave a small shake of his head.

"It cannot be."

"_WHY?_"

"It was the Allfather's decree. Loki was to be bound here, hands immobile, mouth sewn shut, so he could not perform his magic nor tell his lies. Since it had to be done, I did it; no hand could have been kinder than mine. I am his brother."

Rachel didn't doubt Thor's good intentions, but his thick fingers had undoubtedly caused more pain than they'd prevented.

"Loki must remain here. Each night, the serpent comes, a black thing salvaged from the Forgotten Realms, kept starving and angry. It will be here soon, and you ought not to witness the attack. Its venom, for us, is concentrated pain. For you, it would be fatal."

The giant man offered his arm, but Rachel took a step away, in Loki's direction.

"How long?" she asked. "Forever? Has he eaten? Drank? How long can he live like this?"

"We can go months without food or drink," said Thor. "Loki is to remain here, by our father's order, as long as it takes."

"For what?"

"For him to free himself."

Thor held up a silencing hand at Rachel's outraged cry.

"The chains, you see," he said, "Are enchanted. They will break – dissolve to dust – when Loki has repented. When his heart is free from rage and envy, and he bears no further ill will to the Midgardians or the Aesir. Then, and only then, can he have his freedom. 'Ware, mortal. Above us."

Rachel followed Thor's eyeline. He was watching the chain stretched high above Loki's head, which was thicker in one spot – thicker because a large, dark shadow was working its way down the chain like a glob of oil.

A snake.

Loki's chain shook as the snake moved close. Feeling it, Loki stiffened. His already-wide eyes widened, and his mangled lips, beneath their bindings, worked furiously. A terrible noise came from him. He lunged toward Thor and Rachel, looking from one to the other. Panicked. Terrified.

"Brother…" Thor said again, but he failed to finish the thought.

The snake was closer now, and Rachel could see it well. Thick as her arm, with glittering, intelligent eyes and bright fangs two inches long. The fangs dripped yellow venom.

A drop landed on Loki's shoulder and smoked. Loki twisted. Began to hyperventilate.

"You can't let this happen," Rachel moaned. "Free him. Your dad will forgive you. He'll understand."

"Father is in the Odinsleep," said Thor. "For him to wake, and find that one of my first acts as king was to defy him in so serious a matter… I cannot. Come, mortal. You will be cared for in the palace, where you can tell me your story. We will send you home through the Bifrost. You can do no good here. Nor can I."

He pulled Rachel by the shoulder. Perhaps he meant to be careful, but his large hand yanked her forwards so hard her neck muscles strained against whiplash. She was sure that she'd have a hand-shaped bruise tomorrow.

Even so, she resisted. She turned toward Loki, and found her wrist caught in Thor's grip. It was like being held by a piece of granite.

"You said he had to free himself," she said.

"Yes."

"He brought me here. His magic did."

Thor stood, loomed, really, and raised a doubtful eyebrow.

"Let me try to help him," Rachel pleaded. "He brought me here. If I free him, that will, that will count, right? As him freeing himself?"

"For all I know, mortal, you may be a witch. Perhaps you have magicked yourself to his side. How did he summon you, without aid of word or motion?"

Rachel stumbled over her words. She wasn't a good liar, and did her best, instead, to spin the truth. "He knew something like this might happen. Gave me a way to contact him. To call him. And, and he used it to call me instead, I think. It was this."

Thor gave her enough freedom that she could kneel and find the coin where she'd dropped it on the ground. She pressed it into Thor's hand.

The serpent was so close now. Ten feet away, moving slowly.

"A summoning stone," Thor said. "Yes, this is one of his. But why give it to you? Do not think I underestimate the strength of Earth's women. Even small ones. I have known them, and found them brilliant. But you have no physical powers. And I came upon you trying to free him without magic. What is it you think you can do for him?"

"I don't know!" Rachel exploded. "But let me try! It won't be defiance, it won't be anything, please, please, let me go!"

"The serpent," Thor began.

"Your _brother_!" Rachel answered, and the granite hand released her.

Too late to save Loki from the serpent. While Thor had delayed, it had reached Loki. Attached itself to his neck like a giant leech. Rachel could see its body working as it pumped, pumped, pumped that venom into him. Its eyes were rolled back, as if it were in ecstasy. Some of the venom leaked out around its mouth, slushed down Loki's shoulders, adding a new layer to the paint-drop burns.

Loki's gaunt body had gone limp. There was no light in his eyes, though they were open. Even the screaming had stopped.

There was no question of Rachel trying to fight the serpent. All she could do was continue the work of opening Loki's mouth.

When Rachel touched Loki's lip stitches again, the serpent thrashed; its tail whipped against her face, making her scream, and its eyes fixed on her face. But it didn't let go. Rachel had the idea that it couldn't let go. Couldn't release itself from the pleasure it got, causing Loki pain.

Frantically, clumsily, she pulled and pulled at the knots. Thor was watching her, and his scrutiny embarrassed Rachel, slowed her work.

At last, there, the enormous knot was gone, and she could begin pulling the thong out, one enlarged hole at a time. The serpent's pumping had slowed; it was almost done, and it was watching her hungrily.

One stitch out. The leather strip was a foot long, took ages to pull through each hole.

Another.

Another.

Loki's mouth was half-open, and hot air was rushing through it onto Rachel's fingers. His lips were crimped and stiff; he wouldn't be able to talk for some time. And the holes, the holes from the stitches, god, they were huge, like Jack-o-lantern teeth…

The serpent released its fangs from Loki…

One stitch to go.

Coiled…

Pull, pull – there, the stitch was out!

Leapt –

And halted midair, inches from Rachel's face. There, it writhed and hissed. A light spray of venom misted Rachel's face, burning her like hot oil leaping from a pan.

Thor had caught the thing. His mouth was set in a grim line.

"I was not helping Loki," he said, and his voice was quiet, tight. "I was helping you, mortal. Now save my brother."

He flung the serpent upward. Somewhere up there, hundreds of feet away, there was a clanging noise, and Loki's neck chain jerked. The serpent was still alive, crawling back to its home. Waiting to come down again, resume its fun.

Monsters. These people were monsters. Rachel had to get Loki out of here.

His lips were opening and closing now; he sucked air, and a quiet noise came from him, but he couldn't speak yet. Rachel could see him trying to form words, failing as his lips, with their nerve damage, their months of stillness, disobeyed him.

His face, she could now see, was gaunt as his body. The skin over his cheekbones appeared to be vacuum-sealed on. He was a skull with a nose, a collection of prominent features and dramatic shadows.

"Th…" he tried, and gasped. Rachel pressed a kiss to both sides of his mouth, not caring whether Thor saw. She was remembering Loki's smooth, white-chocolate voice, and wondering if she'd ever hear it again. With the damage to his face and the screaming he'd been doing for months, his voice might be gone forever.

"Th- Ch…Chmmm. Ch—m. Chn." There was no volume behind it. A faint whistle where vowels ought to be. Laryngitis.

The gaunt body sagged forward again, drained of energy. From the corner of her eye, Rachel saw Thor dart forward, as if to catch his brother, but at the last second, the blonde giant remembered himself. Loki's momentum was stopped only by his chains.

His wrists dripped blood, and he hung there like clothes on a line.

"Take a second," Rachel whispered. "I'm here. Your brother's here. Tell us what to do." She brushed his hair back from his maimed face. Revealed tear-filled eyes. Still beautiful.

"Ch…ns. Chns."

"Chains?" Rachel asked.

The beautiful, sculpted, damaged mouth opened, and a breath of relief rushed out. Loki's eyes closed, and he nodded, as if his work were done.

"But I'm not strong enough to break the chains."

Rachel turned.

"Thor? Will you…? Please?"

Loki's chains rattled. Rachel turned back, and found those wide, wild eyes piercing hers. They were wide open, and Loki was shaking his head. A frustrated growl escaped him. "Nnn!"

No.

His lips moved, and there was no sound at all, but Rachel read the word "You."

"Me? Me, break the chains?"

His nod was desperate.

She sighed. Reached for one chain, wondering how she could even begin to pull at them without further wrecking Loki's stretched, bleeding wrists…

And at her touch, without a second's delay, the chain disintegrated. Black dust scattered, and Loki was suddenly leaning on Rachel; he'd collapsed against her the instant his arm was released.

Behind Rachel, Thor cried out. In anger or relief? Both, probably.

He didn't interfere, and Rachel touched the remaining two chains, which also vanished, then she sank under Loki's weight. He was thin as wire, but his frame was large, and Rachel had no muscle at all. She couldn't keep him upright.

"How is it possible?" Thor demanded.

Rachel lay flat on her back, absorbing Loki's weight, the coolness of his skin, the rhythm of his breaths.

She managed to turn her head to Thor, and found herself smiling.

"Whoever put the spell on those chains," she said, "didn't count on someone like me touching them."

"Like you?"

"Somebody who doesn't… somebody without…"

"Resentment."

Loki had spoken. He had the voice of a cheese grater, and the single word set him coughing. He tried to rise off Rachel, but couldn't; his wrists were too hurt to support him.

"Father will not like this," rumbled Thor. "It does not comply with the spirit of the – "

Loki rolled to one side. Moved his hands, the barest flicker of movement, but Rachel saw the agony it cost him.

And beside them stood another Loki. This one dressed, healthy, tall, and smiling.

"Thor, how I've missed you," it said, in Loki's old voice, the smooth, crisp one Rachel so loved. "Forgive the theatrics. Easier to talk like this, I hope you agree?" The second Loki stepped casually towards Thor, and as it moved, it wavered like a hologram.

An illusion.

"Oh, my king," the illusion laughed, "You should not have let her come. A fine actress, this one, playing a frightened, helpless human. She is a sorceress not to be reckoned with. Unlike you, I have no taste for unexceptional humans."

The second Loki walked in a slow circle around Thor, and Thor turned, following it, leaving Rachel and Loki behind him.

Loki's hand, his real, shriveled, bloody, snakebitten hand grasped hers.

"Come," he managed in a raspy whisper. He was shaking, trembling like a child in a snowstorm. "Help me."

His illusion-form continued to talk, and to swagger as it did so. "You will answer to her, and to the Nine Realms, for Father's treatment of me. The Hall of Silent Screams? For one you call brother? For a son of Odin, even an adopted son?" The fake Loki's voice caught, and vulnerability shone in its eyes. "How could you? How _could_ you?" And more quietly, he added, "How long has it been? Has… has mother asked…?"

Rachel was almost as taken in by the moving performance as Thor was. Poor Thor immediately began to argue with the thing, weakly, with tears in his eyes, as Rachel dragged the real Loki half-upright.

"Mother has been in agony. As have I. You know, brother," Thor said pleadingly, reaching out a hand to the illusion's shoulder and letting it hover, not touching, fingers clenching in the air. "You know what this has cost me. The thought of your suffering… You know why it had to be. Hundreds of lives. Mortals. Innocents – slaughtered, thanks to your envy, your ambition. Even so, your pain has tortured me – "

"Tortured you?!" spat the illusion, eyes wide, grin stretched in disbelief. "YOU?"

"Brother…"

"Though you are _not_ my brother, Thor, and though there have been times I would have happily watched you die, I would never, _never_ have stood by while you suffered here. I would have found a way to end your pain. Protected you. As I did in Jotunheim. In the Kenning Hall. On the mountains of Halberd, and when you were in the belly of the Gnawing Relkh. Always I have saved you, no matter what it cost me. Yet your turn came, and how long have I hung here, waiting?"

The illusion strolled now, casual, and Thor turned with it. "You must understand."

Loki and Rachel were out of Thor's line of sight, and in an instant, Loki's body stiffened. He might have sprung to his feet if he'd been in any condition. As it was, the slight movement alone, the straightening of his spine, was enough to set him hissing. The effort pushed yellow venom oozing in spurts from the most recent, still-swollen snakebite at his neck, and Rachel's heart wrenched in agony at the sight of more damage to that once-clear skin.

"Your… hand…" he whispered, his damaged lips struggling to work.

"My hand?"

His eyes had closed, and for a moment, Rachel thought he had passed out. But the second version of himself was still berating Thor, and his wrecked, real self managed a nod.

Rachel held up her right hand, examining it. It looked normal. A little singed from the venom. Loki did not open his eyes, so Rachel pressed the hand as gently as she could to his face. The one undamaged section of it, anyway – the hollow beneath one cheekbone, still holding the marks of the muzzle.

God, his skin was cold. Frozen.

Loki's damaged head tilted toward her warm fingers. Rachel wanted to take the weight of it, to hold him up, let him collapse and sleep in her arms, but the ruined, melted skin of his scalp and shoulders prevented her from so much as cradling his head.

His lips were moving. Crudely. Soundlessly. One side of his mouth was stiff, and Rachel wondered if a nerve had been cut by Thor's cruel needle.

She let her fingers drift toward those ruined lips.

Loki bit her.

It was quick, targeted, and deliberate. The surprise was intense, so intense that anger didn't manifest until a few seconds later, long enough for her to yank her hand away, examine it, and note that the damage was minimal. He'd nicked the tips of two fingers. She was bleeding, but not seriously.

And out of instinct, still sensing that Thor was the enemy in this scenario, she had not cried out. Not drawn attention to the real Loki. She was grateful for that in a moment, when Loki again garbled out a few words.

"Necessary. Bl... Blood. Need…"

He shuddered. His eyes were still closed. One hand raised itself just an inch off the ground, the loose, piled skin at the wrist dangling like a sleeve. He dragged a finger along the ground in a wide arc, twirled it in the air, then his strength seemed to give out.

"Blood," Rachel whispered. "You need blood to…" Blood magic. She'd read about it. "For a spell? You want me to do what you just did?"

He didn't respond. His doppelganger had gone quiet. It still stood, but was now staring seriously at Thor, letting him talk in his booming voice. It blinked every few seconds, but otherwise didn't move, and Rachel wondered how long it would stand once Loki fell entirely unconscious.

Not even feeling the pain anymore, Rachel dragged her fingers along the same arc where Loki had brushed his. Her blood spread in a messy line.

It stayed on the ground, inert, and Loki's breath rattled.

That couldn't be all he wanted, a curved line of blood, what kind of spell…? A circle. Rachel needed to make a circle. On all the supernatural shows, you drew some kind of circle on the ground, a pentagram or something. She worked quickly, shuffling her body as well as she could without jostling the burned, ruined body at her side. When she was finished, the blood line formed a rough circle about three feet across, with her and Loki on the inside, though his long legs jutted out of it.

And no sooner had she completed the circle than the vision-Loki flickered and vanished.

Thor had been in the middle of a sentence. "The people of Earth were under my—"

And he turned back to face the pair on the ground.

"He's passed out," Rachel said weakly. "You have to get us out of here. He's free, he freed himself. You said it was allowed. Now teleport us… or at least him, teleport him, fly him, whatever you do, get him medical help."

"No," said Thor, not unkindly. "Those were not the terms. He must free himself from the cavern."

"He's dying!"

Tears were brimming in Thor's bright blue eyes. Surely he could be convinced…surely…

"What is that?" Thor's expression changed, his eyebrows pulled together in alarm. A few steps brought him towering above her. "What are you doing?"

"I'm not d-" Rachel began, then realized he wasn't talking to her.

Loki was not unconscious after all. One set of long, bony fingers had found its way into the edge of the blood circle, and he was in the process of scrawling a few small, messy symbols on the surface of the dais.

And he gasped one word. There was only the barest hint of vibration behind it. "Eir!"

"Be safe," Thor said.

Within the blood circle, the ground vanished neatly, all at once, and Rachel and Loki fell together into an endless black abyss.


	3. Eir

Rachel's stomach dropped; she screamed; she grabbed out, latching onto Loki.

They were falling straight, with no wind resistance, down a tunnel apparently made of rainbow light and mirrors.

Then they weren't. There was no impact, not even a thump or recoil. It was like falling in a dream and waking sitting up, safe in bed.

Loki's mangled cry pulled Rachel from the shock. Her desperate, clutching fingers had buried himself in his burned skin, and she yanked them back, horrified that she'd done further damage to his tortured body. Indeed, the imprints of her fingers were there, deep and oozing clear pus. Christ.

They were in another cave, but this one was lit by clean, pale blue light, unlike the smoky red of the Hall of Silent Screams. The light came from a shimmering wall to the right, about thirty feet away. It only took Rachel a second to figure out they were behind a waterfall.

Loki had, perhaps mercifully, really passed out this time. The use of his power, plus Rachel's invasive grabbing at his wounds, had finally made him pass out. He was curled on his side in fetal position. Rachel took a minute to gather her wits, then laid Loki gently on his stomach. He was too easy too manipulate. Too light. After a moment's hesitation, she removed her pajama pants, folded them, and placed them beneath his head as a pillow. He wouldn't get a glimpse of anything he hadn't seen before.

A quick touch revealed that the waterfall was thin, flowing slowly and gently. Rachel could safely drink from it – god, she was thirsty – and even stick her head out the other side, where she could see the landscape.

She quickly yanked herself back.

A shining, golden city, arranged like a winged pipe organ. Floating walls, impossibly high cliffs, and a river of the brightest, clearest water she'd ever seen. An artificial, solid rainbow stretching behind the city. Clockwork sculptures on a scale unknown to humanity. The hint of supernovas and galaxies hanging far too close in the dark patch of sky near the horizon.

Asgard. She was in Asgard. Jesus.

It was a lot to swallow, but after the initial shock, Rachel had a surprisingly easy time accepting the information. She'd already had a lot to absorb in the last year. Taking in a mysterious, abandoned man. Realizing he had magic powers. Sleeping with him, falling in love with him. Enduring the trauma of the attack that ended their relationship. Learning he was a god. Losing him. Seeing him again on the news, decked out in armor and horns, flying an alien speeder bike as he destroyed her home and the person closest to her. And the Leviathans…

This, Asgard, was only another layer on the cake.

She couldn't really contemplate it anyway. Loki needed help. Real medical attention.

Squatting next to him, Rachel examined his wounds closely and winced. It was hard to decide what was worse – the melting burns on his back and head or the mutilation of his face. The back would hurt more now, but eventually the scars could be covered. The holes in his face wouldn't close. They were stretched, not torn, like the holes left by ear gauges. Twelve in all – six above his lips, six below.

He'd been so beautiful. How many times had she kissed this face? How would he speak now, stand tall and proud in his armor, with this face? How would he ever recover from this kind of deformity? She knew him to be sensitive and, yes, vain. Looking like this would wreck him.

She shook herself out of that line of thought.

Fluids. He needed fluids.

The waterfall was thirty feet away, and Rachel had no cup, no means of carrying water other than her hands. So her hands were what she used.

The first attempt, she barely made it five steps before spilling her double cupped handful of water in streams over her feet.

Having read so much mythology in the last year, her first thought was of the daughters of Danaus, who were forced to spend eternity carrying water in sieves. They could be freed when they had filled a distant vessel with the water they carried, but of course they never completed the trip to the vessel, having to go back for water again and again.

This situation had a mythological flavor to it, and Rachel resolved immediately that she was going to be smart about this.

After thinking a moment, she pressed her lips to the waterfall and let her mouth fill with the sweet, sharp water, then filled her hands again.

The walk back was ridiculously slow, and she lost half the payload in her hands, but once she reached Loki, she was able to spread some of the cool water on the back of his head.

She had intended to somehow spit the water into his mouth, but that was just too much, so she spit the water into her cupped hands instead, and angled some of it into his mouth. Most seeped out through the holes in his lips, but she imagined he swallowed at least a little.

She made another trip, and another. On the third, she noticed a change that made her practically collapse with relief. Where she had poured water, the burns were healing. The red expanse of damaged flesh was now painted with waxy strips of pale peach. Healthy skin.

Rachel poured water on the newest snakebite, still angry and swollen near to bursting. She was immediately rewarded. Yellow, puss-glossy venom began to flow out of the puncture wounds. Not a lot, and it stopped as soon as the water stopped, but it was a good sign.

The water was magic.

Well, of course it was. What had she expected?

This time, Rachel _did_ – gently – spit her mouthful of water into Loki's mouth, angling his head to make sure he swallowed it. He needed this water inside him, to clean him out, make him whole.

Loki awoke at that, spluttering at first, then hissing in pain. His eyes, hooded, with dark hollows beneath them, widened at the sight of Rachel in only her pajama top and underwear, but he recovered quickly.

"The waterfall," he choked.

"Yeah, I know," she said. "I've been bringing you water, but it's only a few drops at a time, it's not enough. You've got to walk to it."

She saw him automatically try to smirk; saw his lips twist and his forehead contort with the pain of the effort. "Not today," he said at last. "You must carry me."

He really couldn't move, Rachel discovered over the next hour. His exhaustion was total. He couldn't so much as rise to an elbow. And the damage to his skin was so extreme he could hardly be touched anywhere. She couldn't drag him by his wrists, they were nothing but open wounds. Couldn't drag him by the ankles without scraping the raw, wet burns off his entire back.

Eventually she found a silly, humiliating way to drag him. Face to face, her arms hooked around his lower back, his face hanging over her shoulder, she was able to scramble backwards, scooting on her butt, a foot or so at a time.

By the time they reached the waterfall, Rachel needed a shower almost as badly as Loki did.

His eyes were closed again as she roughly rolled him beside the water. Another quarter-turn brought just his shoulders and back beneath the cool stream.

She didn't let him lean past the first thin sheet of water. Partly because she was afraid of him falling off the low cliff below their cave, but mostly because she feared discovery. They were both, she had realized, fugitives in this world. Someone might be watching on the other side of the fall.

Rachel splashed water on her face, fighting exhaustion, and watched Loki heal.

It was wonderful. God, how she would like to live in this world, where recovery from half-body first-degree burns and months of hardship was as easy as sitting in the gentle, cool flow of a river.

The red skin turned pink, then white. His hair did not regrow on the back of his scalp, but Rachel had a feeling it would in time.

She splashed water in large, sloppy handfuls over his wrists. A human would have needed his hands amputated, but within ten minutes, Loki's skin had pulled together and was tightening.

After twenty minutes, though, Rachel realized there would be scars. Both Loki's wrists were circled by a single line of raised flesh, perhaps a millimeter thick. His back, too, hadn't turned out as perfectly as Rachel would have liked. Some strips of flesh were totally healed, but some, again, were slightly raised, and tough. They were faded, old-looking scars, but scars they were.

Some of the puncture wounds had vanished; some had not. Probably, Rachel mused, there was some rhyme slash reason to it. The river healed, but not a hundred percent. Enough to make you whole, but not enough to make you forget the wound had ever happened.

What about his face?

Rachel was spared the trouble of trying to pull his head into the waterfall without drowning him. Loki awoke himself, this time with a sigh and a groan, and rolled to his knees on his own.

Without looking at her, he bent his back reverently, pressing his upturned face toward the water.

He held that position perhaps five minutes, while Rachel watched in silence.

The image was beautiful: Loki, barefoot and shirtless, folded in half on his knees, face raised. He was lit by falling webs of blue waterlight. The length of his limbs and torso were incredible. Rachel wanted to stroke his thin flank; it seemed to stretch forever, marked only by the tiger stripes of his ribs, ending in a sharp but beautiful jut of hip that disappeared beneath his black trousers.

Except for his thinness, this was the body she remembered. Lithe and flexible, ivory-pale, stretched to almost inhuman proportions.

And when he at last pulled his face back, and pushed his sopping hair backwards to hide the bare patch at the back of his scalp, Rachel saw that his face was – _almost _– healed.

The wretched deformed holes were gone, thank god. But above and below Loki's flat lips were six pinched spots, the remains of Thor's clumsy needlework.

Rachel knew instinctively that Loki would bear the marks forever.

He inclined his face to her at last, still on his knees, facing the waterfall like a pilgrim at a shrine. Some of the insanity was gone from his eyes. There were still circles beneath them, but not black hollows, not pits of pain.

He blinked twice, his pupils slowly dilated, and he said in that familiar, clipped, classy voice of his, "Well. In trouble again, aren't you, Rachel?"

* * *

In his travels, Loki had all but forgotten the girl. There had been no occasion to think of her, and absence had not created longing. If anything, as his power grew, as he approached _true_ kingship and godhood, the idea that he had once been in a mortal chit's thrall grew disgusting to him.

He was surprised to find he remembered her name. Remembered, even, that it was the first word he had spoken to her, plucked from her open, unguarded mind.

He also remembered enough to tell that she had changed in the time since they had been together. Decades for him, perhaps a year for her, he knew, but she had aged more than a year.

She wore only panties and a pajama top, and the flannel absolutely swamped her. He had noted the expression on her face as she counted his ribs, and wondered if she knew that she was almost as thin as he.

Although… in the past few minutes, a change had come over her. She looked better than she had in the Hall.

The water. Cold and fresh, from the Lyfjaberg river, sourced by the unending spring of Eir. Help. Healing. The river had repaired collagen in her face, added luster to her hair, reddened her cheeks, woken her up thoroughly. Probably added a year to her life. Assuming she ever made it back to her life in Midgard.

He could not read her mind. Not here. This cave, even moreso than the rest of Asgard, radiated magic. Some was even within the girl now, being filtered through her organs as the water permeated her body. The cascade of ancient, humming, sentient magic drowned any thoughts that might be quietly pinging from a mortal head.

She had used the coin. The one he had so foolishly given her, along with a promise to return.

He was rather embarrassed at how well the coin had worked. The magic had been so powerful that when he could not go to the girl, the coin had actually pulled her to him. Through the width and breadth of the nine realms, through hundreds of feet of solid rock and protective wards, all in an instant.

That kind of power… He must have felt very strongly back when he made the coin. The promise to return. The man he was today would never give a human, or anyone, that degree of control over him.

Thank the Nine Realms he had, though. Already the horror of the months in the Hall of Silent Screams was beginning to fade from his mind. His psyche was protecting itself from trauma. But his body was fresh with the aftereffects of pain, of the terror of the snake… He could find it in himself to be, if not exactly grateful to the human girl, at least not inclined to shove her aside.

"What exactly do you want?" he said at last.

The girl was all eyes and legs and red, open mouth. "Me?" she asked stupidly.

"You wanted a favor. Or did you call on me for a chat?"

After tedious seconds of fishmouthing, the girl managed, "Oh, you mean what did I want when I called you? Nothing. I mean… nothing anymore."

Her body language said it all.

"Too late, then? Who was it?"

"My brother."

"Tragic."

He hardly knew why the word was so venom-laced. It didn't matter that he'd failed the girl, anymore than it mattered that a few slow, flabby humans had fallen to the Chitauri. None of it mattered. Not when considered in the proper perspective.

It was in him, though, to be stirred by the word _brother._ He did wish it had been someone else. A father, a sister, a friend.

"You okay?" the girl asked. She was scrambling to pull her bottoms back on. "You haven't eaten in weeks – "

_Try months._

"- and you were so exhausted, in so much pain. You must need rest, food, real sleep. Not on the floor. Is there anywhere we can take you?"

This, Loki found, he remembered as well. The mortal girl's overestimation of her own importance when it came to him.

"_We_ cannot take me anywhere," he said. He began to rise from his kneeling position, placing weight on one foot for the first time in months –

– and rubbery weakness shot up his leg, which promptly collapsed beneath him.

He granted himself a rueful smile when the girl promptly wrapped herself around him, all worried questions, hands gliding across his sides, searching for wounds she had to know were beyond her ability to heal.

"I'll get us to civilization tomorrow," he said, curling to one side on the ground. "A day of rest, that's all, that's all I need."

His weakness was bleeding through to his voice. Gods, he was tired. So tired, he didn't comment when the girl pressed herself against his back and crooked her arm beneath his head in a sad attempt to give him a pillow, make him comfortable.

Even without reading her mind, this close, Loki could sense the girl's loneliness. Her hunger for touch. A gnawing, frightful emptiness inside her. She was desperate for something. Not sex, not exactly. Connection.

He remembered the day of their parting. A memory he'd not revisited in so long, it surprised him to learn it was still carried inside him.

That day, it had been _her_ broken body cradled in _his_ arms. He'd pressed her to his chest, terrified for her, but thrilling in her heartbeat, in the fact that she was alive and with him. In that moment, he could have crawled inside her skin, so desperate had he been to wrap his soul around her own. To comfort her, protect her.

She'd been in pain then, and she still was, though it had faded.

He hated knowing it. Hated sensing it.

He wished she were not with him. He didn't need any guilt over a mortal, and she didn't need any worry, or a hopeless infatuation, to further darken her once-bright spirit.

* * *

Loki dreamed he was back in the Hall. Hanging, helpless, unable to relieve the burn of the snake venom or the ache of his wrists and back. Unable to move, to scream, even to moan, confined by the muzzle and his chains. Totally alone.

He awoke gasping.

His terror was so acute, the hallucination so powerful, that in his disorientation he didn't notice he was no longer in the hidden cave behind the waterfall of Eir.

Instead, he was in his own bedchamber, the giant room in the palace of Asgard which had been his since he reached adulthood. He lay in the center of an enormous featherbed, surrounded by white silken sheets and supported by wide, soft pillows.

A girl lay in his arms, blinking sleepily up at him, smiling. Mortal. Beautiful. Her hair spread behind her like a cloud; her clear skin glowed; her limbs were delicate works of art.

Loki was not himself in that moment. His memories were a swirling haze. He could not remember his own name, much less the girl's. All he knew was the potent combination of fear and relief, and the need to be absolutely certain he was no longer abandoned in hell.

The girl's breath was clean; Loki found himself kissing her desperately. Without kindness or restraint, heedless of her comparative weakness. He crushed himself to her, making her cry out against his lips, but after a few panicked seconds, she was kissing him back.

Her skin smelled of violets and fresh air. It tasted like pristine water. He couldn't get enough of it. Groaning, he licked his way down her body, tonguing her breasts, her navel, the hollows of her hipbones.

Distantly, he heard her cry out again – this time in pleasure – as he sucked at her cleft, buried his tongue in her, mercilessly made love to her with his mouth, drank her orgasm like a man dying of thirst.

Then he was on top of her. Inside her wet heat, thrusting, his face buried in her shoulder. It was all the girl could do to hold on. She clutched at his back, flattened her breasts against his chest, and as he drove her into the bed, all but breaking her, she whispered in his ear:

"It's okay. It's okay, I'm here. I'm here, baby. You're not alone. You're free. Shhh, you're safe. I promise."

A piece of the girl's soul was missing, as a piece of his was. Loki imagined the empty spaces inside them locking up, matching, forming a whole from two halves, and the need for that completion consumed him.

Forehead to forehead with the girl, he pressed the lengths of their bodies together, crushed her, sealed her mouth with his, dug his fingers into her sides, ground her pelvis as he came, white-hot, and she screamed into his throat.

Still not knowing his own name, Loki fell unconscious again.


	4. Aftermath

Rachel woke the next morning in total agony.

It would be three days before Loki regained consciousness.

As he lay in total, unresponsive, heavy sleep, Rachel worked to recover enough to get off the bed. She couldn't walk. It took her long minutes, crawling, to make it into the Aesir equivalent of a bathroom, attached to one side of Loki's bedchamber. There, she found a full-length mirror, though she didn't need it to know the terrible extent of the damage.

Her whole body was covered in bruises. Deep, wrenching, debilitating bruises, worked well into the muscle. There were clear finger-marks on her thighs, her bottom, her sides, her upper arms. Black oval-shaped spots scattered across the blue and purple field of her skin.

And her face, Christ. Her lips were swollen and spread, as if she'd been stung by a bee. There was blood on her teeth; Loki, in his aggressive kissing, had scraped his teeth against her gums and opened them up.

One of her eyes was blackened. There was a handprint around her throat.

And though she was able, with some effort, to climb into the round bathtub, she could neither walk nor sit. The pain between her legs was terrible. She was bleeding there, too.

Rachel found a lever that released lukewarm water from a beautifully carved pipe. She stayed in the tub for hours, cleaning the blood and crying the pain out.

The days that followed gave her the time and solitude she needed to recover. No one came to check on them, though every few hours, fresh food appeared on a small table just beside the door. Rachel never heard the door open or close.

The food was delicious. Fruit, berries, cheese, bread, thinly sliced meat she didn't recognize. It was always accompanied by a large pitcher of sweet pink liquid that tasted like fruit punch, but turned out, based on its effects on Rachel's brain, to be wine.

This must mean Loki had been forgiven again.

She knew how they had gotten here, though the memory was only a series of flashes.

Thor had found them. Rachel had woken, though it was a sloppy, drugged wakefulness, to find him gently extracting Loki from her arms. She assumed Thor had carried Loki; Rachel had been carried by a woman, tall and striking, with long black hair and armor that banged uncomfortably against Rachel's body.

Rachel didn't know how long the journey had been. It had felt like only minutes to her, but she realized that couldn't really be the case. As far as she remembered, neither Thor nor any of his entourage – and there had been several more people, large, kind-faced men in armor – had said a word as they walked.

She knew she had been cleaned by gentle strangers, women in white. They had dressed her in a cream-colored robe, which now lay ripped in pieces on the bed. And there had been some kind of discussion over where to put her.

It had been Thor, again, who made the decision: "She cries out for him. Cares for him. Lay them together. She'll do him no harm."

Well, he'd been right about that.

Anger flowed in and out of Rachel every few hours, like tides. Anger for her city, her brother, herself. How could he have…?

But she knew better than anyone what a ravaged, pain-scarred landscape Loki's mind was.

Knew it better than ever now. She'd seen inside his mind, his heart, just a little bit, while he was frantically driving her into the sheets. A side effect of the magic water, she suspected.

And poor Loki had had no idea what he was doing. How he was hurting her. No ability to grasp empathy, sanity, anything but his own pain and fear and need.

Hopefully he'd wake up in better shape, if he ever did wake up.

There was a window that opened out, four feet wide and thirty feet high. When Rachel had recovered the ability to sit, she sat on a pillow in the sill, arms wrapped around her knees, and looked out at the magical world with its floating art and backdrop of purple galaxies.

Her bruises faded somewhat. The food seemed to help, especially the sweet, fresh fruit, which perked her up better than coffee. It didn't cure the deep ache in her muscles, but it made it bearable. She felt she would recover, given time.

At night, it got extremely cold. Rachel slept on the icy, polished floor, wrapped in a large blanket. She would have preferred the bed, but she couldn't risk waking up helpless in his arms again.

Loki was affected by neither the cold nor the heat. His skin was always cool to the touch.

The scars around his lips were still there, pinched and hard. His hair was growing back.

In the middle of the night, after the third day, Rachel woke shivering on the ground, and Loki was crouched in front of her, his face all cruel shadows in the moonlight.

She shrieked involuntarily, then stilled, as Loki only stared at her. She couldn't tell what he was thinking, though she sensed he wasn't happy. His mouth was slightly open and he didn't blink; she felt as if she were a virus under the microscope of a shocked biologist.

His hand shot out and stopped at her cheek. Gently, unbelievably gently, he brushed the backs of his knuckles across her skin. She remembered what her face looked like now, all bruises and swelling, and she shrank back, half in fear and half in shame.

At last, he spoke: "What have you done?"

"Done?" she whispered.

"What have you done to me?"

Of course, Rachel didn't have the faintest idea how to answer, and she didn't bother trying. She shook her head – _I don't know_ – and reached out to touch his cold cheek, mirroring his gesture.

"You should go back to bed," she said at last. "You're-"

Loki shook his head. "I won't have it. I won't. But how have you done it, Rachel?"

He must be hallucinating. Hearing a different conversation than the one they were actually having. Rachel wondered if he were going to kill her. She shivered, and stupidly thought, _I want to die warm._

Instantly, he was all around her. His hands at her sides, right in the bruises, right where it hurt most, trying to lift her, and she moaned, "Please, no, please don't hurt me."

He froze. Let her go. His hand went back to her face, though, and the pad of his thumb stroked her lips.

At last, his stare cracked; he smiled, smirked even, and she thought she saw sanity returning to him as he chuckled, apparently to himself.

"Hurt you?" he said. "No, I suppose not." And he pressed his lips to her forehead, one of the few places she wasn't injured. He closed his eyes, knitted his brows, and made a small motion with his hands…

Rachel wasn't even surprised when she began to hover off the ground, then levitated right to the center of the giant bed.

Loki's magic lowered her gently; even so, the shifting of positions made her wince, and she saw worry flash across his face. With another wave of Loki's hand, Rachel was surrounded by pillows, and covered in two thick, furry blankets. Warm at last, she found herself drifting to sleep immediately.

He didn't join her, and she was grateful. It would have been too much even to be held by him, so soon after he'd hurt her so badly.

* * *

In the morning, Rachel woke to find Loki standing at the door with his back to her, drinking deep from a goblet of the sweet wine. He wore only black trousers, and appeared taller than ever.

He must have been up all night. He'd cut his hair down to chin-length, and a few massive books lay open on the floor.

Rachel said nothing. Just watched that long, sharp, dangerous body move. He was tense. Muscles worked beneath his skin as he set down the goblet heavily, and his Adam's apple jumped as he swallowed, eyes closed.

He stiffened, as if he heard something Rachel couldn't, then sighed and turned to face the door. It opened with a _boom_, and a now-familiar form barreled in.

"Brother!" Thor was smiling.

Loki was cooler, and took his time turning before saying, "By all means, enter, Odinson."

"Father is awake."

Loki eyed Thor up and down. "Father has been awake before. That isn't what you came to tell me."

"You are forgiven! His anger is gone; he said it didn't matter how you'd escaped, so long as you had, and he was happy to have you back."

"Interesting," said Loki. "Forgiven. That's all, then? All you came to tell me?"

"All that matters!"

"But there is more news. You are in full battle armor, brother, and you carry the knife of Laufey. Is it for me?"

Thor blinked. Loki went on, tone frosty.

"Is it possible _Father_ is again under attack? That he found forgiveness in his heart after realizing I might be useful in the coming battle?" Loki paused and frowned, thinking. "What would he need me for that his sorcerers haven't mastered? Access to the underworld paths? Helheim, is it, then? The Náir?"

Poor Thor said nothing.

Loki sighed, then smiled weakly and clapped his larger brother on the shoulder. "Well, then. No matter. Helheim's lovely this time of year. And perhaps I'll fit in among the corpses."

His long fingers drifted to his lips. The scars.

"I am sorry, brother," said Thor in a low, sad rumble.

"You should be," said Loki. "But, like Father, at this point I find the thought of vengeance tedious and impractical. So."

He let Thor hug him. After a moment, he lifted his arms to hug the bigger man back, and Rachel saw part of Loki's rigid façade drop as he enjoyed the show of affection from his brother.

"I am glad to see you free," said Thor. "Your pain was mine."

Thor handed over a wicked-looking, ice-blue blade, which Loki vanished between his hands.

"Now," cried Thor, clearly trying to get a smile out of Loki, "you've not yet introduced me to your friend! Mother talks of nothing else – where have you hidden her?"

Though he had looked all around the room, and right across the bed where Rachel sat huddled in a mound of covers, clearly visible, Thor didn't seem to see her.

She opened her mouth; Loki met her eyes, pinched his scarred mouth, and gave a quick, tiny shake of his head. So she stayed quiet and watched Thor look for her.

"Long gone, brother – sorry to disappoint. The girl was a sorceress, and I shall never tell you how I summoned her. She's been paid for her services, and has returned to her own realm."

Thor grinned. "You cannot fool me, brother. She may be gone, but she was no sorceress. I've never seen a girl so human! You're not ashamed of her, surely? Come, tell me who she is! We'll introduce her to my Jane – make a set of them!"

Loki's grin was strained. "Your tastes were never refined as mine, Thor. Nor as exotic. You should know a human could not tempt me."

"Well," said Thor, with a twinkling smile, "She may not have tempted you, but you tempted her. The way she looked at you! You'd do well to win more allies like her – she hit me, do you remember, on your behalf! But come. Keep your secrets. Bring them to the battlefield. I'll talk them out of you on the march."

"An hour," said Loki. "I wouldn't miss it."

Thor was out the door, exiting even more loudly than he'd entered, calling out merrily to his friends.

There was a long pause.

"You could have introduced me," said Rachel, raising an eyebrow. "Not like he'd mistake me for a threat. Why the – " she waved her hand to indicate magic.

Loki looked at his feet, then up to her. He seemed to be choosing his words carefully when he said, "He can never know who you are. None of them can. They shouldn't know you are human – shouldn't know you exist. If I could, I would wipe you from their memories entirely, but father and mother would remember, and it would all unravel in the end."

"But why can't they know about me?"

"Come out from there," said Loki, "And let me see you."

Rachel took a good, long look at him. All the madness was gone from his face. His eyes were clear and focused; now that Thor had gone, tension was leaking out of him, and in the sunlight, he looked fresh and warm.

She crawled out from under the covers and made her way to the edge of the bed. She wore only a green tunic she'd stolen from one of Loki's drawers. It sat on her like a loose night dress, exposing most of her still-healing skin.

He sat beside her without comment, and began examining her. Scientifically. He took her by the chin and turned her head side to side; looked at her eyes, stared his way down her chest, her belly, lightly touched her arms. There was nothing sensual in the movement.

"I'm not mistaken," he said at last, as if delivering a diagnosis. "It's there."

"What is? No more riddles, please just tell me."

He pursed his lips, then said quietly, "A piece of myself."

Rachel went cold. "If you're trying to say I'm pregnant," she said, "you're wrong. I can't. I mean, not after…what happened last year."

Did something flicker behind his eyelids?

"That isn't what I was referring to."

"Oh." The air hung heavy between them. Embarrassed and just wanting a break, Rachel said, "Hang on. This conversation could use a little something." She rose, got the pitcher of wine and two goblets, and brought them back to the bed.

Loki allowed himself to chuckle, and as they drank the wine, he explained the trouble he had inadvertently caused for both of them.


	5. Tangled

Three nights earlier, the night they lay together and Loki woke, terrified and confused, reaching out, desperate for the contact of another soul, he had once again, in his need, come across Rachel. Her body had been there, soft and beautiful; her soul had been there, bright and shining and kind, holding itself out to Loki, loving him.

He'd latched onto that soul. Held it tight.

Tangled himself in it.

Now, using his magic, he could see the entanglement if he tried hard enough; Rachel's aura, the palest yellow, was splashed with the dark jade of his own. But he didn't need to see it. He could feel the connection.

He'd first felt it when Rachel woke, suffering the physical aftereffects of Loki's savage lovemaking. He'd felt her pain.

Amplified. It was as if he were touching a bolt of lightning; the sensations were ten times what they ought to have been. He'd apparently tapped into her feelings at their source, where they were produced in their purest, most intense state.

Then there was the emotional pain. He saw the death of her brother; that he, Loki, had been responsible for it. Saw the betrayal Rachel had felt at the sight of him destroying Manhattan. Saw her devastation that he'd hurt her yet again, that he'd taken her while she screamed in agony – and after she had freed him from the torture of the snake venom.

Her emotions led to a further torrent of memories of injustice, loss, fear. Memories of the last year, the year since he'd met her. Every terrible moment she glanced through, he experienced in terrible scale. The vicious torture. Agonizing, expensive weeks in the hospital. The infected internal suture, the hysterectomy that followed. The loss of two jobs in two months because of fear-induced panic attacks. Loss of her apartment. Poverty. Dependence on her brother. Horror at his loss. Total loneliness. Inability to form human connections. The dimming of the bright, shining soul.

It had been too much to bear. Indeed, it had kept him comatose for three days, and he only woke once Rachel had essentially recovered.

Still, he could feel the connection. Confused and disoriented, he'd thought at first _she_ had caused it somehow. To ensnare him, hurt him. But he knew his own magical signature. And he knew Rachel. No, this was Loki's own work.

Now he was chained to a mortal, a small, breakable girl of deep emotions and endless vulnerability. It had never been done before, this sharing of souls; he'd spent the night in research. He would have to find a way to break the connection himself.

Because it was of course unacceptable. He had pain of his own, and, in any case, could not be chained to this girl. This young, naïve, senseless, broken thing.

He saw at once she would have to be hidden. Loki's enemies would be thrilled to know of her. An open nerve. As exposed an underbelly as they could ever hope to find.

Rachel asked what would happen if she died, and Loki couldn't answer, but he didn't care to find out. He would separate their souls long before Rachel had to worry about death.

But he would do it after the war. The Náir, the walking corpses, he was to fight them soon. Tonight. And he couldn't take Rachel with him. Couldn't leave her unprotected, not in Asgard, not after what he'd done. He had too many enemies, even in the palace. Especially in the palace.

So as they talked, he moved them. Rachel, he knew, couldn't sense it happening. He was unwilling to jar her, to startle her in any way, when her fear so acutely affected him. It wasn't until they'd been talking half an hour that she looked around and noticed they were in a new place.

He had shifted them through the realms without disturbing a hair on her head, and now they were in a small, beautifully appointed, modern human room. A baby grand piano was tucked in a corner; all the furniture was new, and a kitchen full of slick, touch-screen appliances was visible down a short hallway.

"I'd ask," said Rachel crisply, "but you're going to tell me where we are anyway, aren't you?"

She was trying to tamp down her feelings, but Loki was attuned to her now. He felt her sense of oncoming abandonment better than she did.

"While I lived with you," Loki said, "You know I had another life, in the underground. This was one of my several safehouses. We are in central Manhattan. The rent is paid in advance for two years. The utilities will take care of themselves. Three million dollars in unmarked bills is stacked in the cupboard left of the sink."

Rachel nodded slowly. Her emotions swamped Loki. He tried to maintain a calm expression while she came to understand the arrangement.

"Thank you," she said. "But don't…don't go yet. I just… why can't I feel _your_ emotions? Why is it one way?"

Because Loki was the one so desperate for connection that he'd stuck a hook directly into another person's heart.

"Because magic runs through my blood, and not through yours."

"Okay."

He saw her swallowing, hesitating, and wanted to strangle her. _Say it. I feel what you feel. I know what you want to ask._

But he let her wait, let the question come in its own time.

Tears welled out of her eyes, though she tried to fight them, as she asked, "Are you only getting bad feelings from this connection? I mean…can you feel anything else? Do you know…?"

"Negative feelings are stronger than positive ones. That's part of why I must free myself soon."

"Oh. Oh, I mean, yes, I understand."

"Stop," Loki heard himself say, though he hadn't meant to. "Stop it. Rachel."

The poor, beautiful, sad-eyed girl just looked at him, trying to hold herself together. "What?"

"Stop feeling this way. Stop thinking that…" By the elder gods, her pain was going to kill him. "I know what's in your heart. You're remembering the last time I left you alone. How I didn't come back for you and didn't come when you called."

"You're too important to hang with me, Loki. I told you that when we first met, remember?"

Yes, he did.

"I will return."

"To free yourself from me."

Damn her.

Loki rose. He couldn't take another moment in her presence. Her emotions were going to suffocate him. Every squeeze and twist of her heart wrung his own. Perhaps distance would… yes. He had to get away. Before he did something foolish.

The girl grabbed his hand. "Goodbye," she said. "Tell me goodbye again."

The physical connection rocked him; her feelings flowed over him, and against his will, he whispered, "Yes."

She sniffled. "Yes what?"

"Yes, to answer your question, I can feel something other than your pain. Yes, I do know what you want me to know."

Relief broke through her, and vicariously through him, like a sunbeam. An enormous smile lit up her teary face.

"Good!" she cried. "Good. Just wanted to make sure. Didn't want you going off to battle thinking nobody – "

Her hand was squeezing his, and he was wrecked, trying to block the sensations rushing through it.

Yes, he knew how much she loved him. How her love was unconditional and total, how she would always be there for him, how his pain and his damaged psyche and scars only made her love him more. How her heart came to life in his presence.

He knew he ought to leave. That the last thing in the world he needed was this. To be tied to a mortal girl, to be loved by her. To see straight into a kind, clean heart, a heart incapable of malice or vengeance, that could belong to him if he said the word.

The temptation was awful.

And the girl, damn her, damn her, damn her, caught him in a soft hug, and whispered, "I'll miss you, okay? Make good decisions. Nothing I wouldn't do. If you're considering world domination, maybe just – "

He cut her off with a kiss.

Nothing painful, hard or bruising like last time. The gentlest, barest touch of his lips to hers. She stilled. Her swirling emotions stabilized in an instant, focusing on the sensation, the pleasure of the quiet contact.

The warmth of her kindness washing over him was intoxicating. Her heart pulled at him.

If he didn't stop now, he was going to fall in love with this girl.

He didn't stop.

It was only a kiss for a long time, and a chaste one at that. He let them touch; let her fingers card through his hair, feather-light. Then he tasted her tongue, slowly, letting her breathe, letting her smile.

He could hardly caress her without hurting her, so it was Rachel who gently stripped her own clothes off, then his, kissing him all the while. It was she who pressed him backwards onto the bed, and pulled his hands to her sides, where he lightly touched her up and down, but applied no pressure.

Above him, all hair and eyes and smiles, she bent to kiss his nose. The scars above his lips. His ears. His collarbone. She placed a kiss between each prominent rib, and one to the inside of each of his thighs, before taking him in hand and stroking him, and kissing her way down his shaft.

Gods, he wanted her. Wanted to flip her over, throw her down, and take what he could. She would love him all the same, he knew. Always.

But he couldn't bear to hurt her. Not any longer. He let her pleasure him at her own speed, then climb her way back up his body. She mounted him slowly.

As she sank down on him, she winced and moaned. Her pain, an echo of Loki's abuse, knifed through him, and he sat up in a flash to catch her in his arms.

She breathed hard, trembling, and let him hold her. It took long seconds to get her through the stretch, the sting.

But she did get through it.

Wrapped in each other, with Rachel on top, controlling their rhythm, they made quiet love in a way Loki hadn't done for hundreds of years, except with her.

At sex – fucking – he was an expert. But his partners never loved him. It was only ever about physical pleasure. Or worse, part of some game, a power play, an attempt at extortion, manipulation.

Rachel was incapable of such games. She only wanted to be allowed to love him. To taste every part of the man she worshipped; to see him in ecstasy; to make him feel what he meant to her. And he could feel it. He felt he would never get enough of the feeling.

He had to be careful of her damaged flesh. The only time he gripped her tight was when he came. His face was pressed between her breasts as he kissed her sternum, and she loved it; the sensation of her vibrating around him undid him, and he couldn't help but pull her in – to try to taste a little more of her before he had to give her up.

She stayed on top of him, flushed and shaking. His warm semen dripped between them when he pulled out of her at last. Immediately he felt unanchored. Lost. And he pulled her back onto him.

Let her lie there, her lips pressed to the hollow of his throat, for he didn't know how long.

She didn't follow him when he rose to go. She had already become resigned to his loss.

But he felt her blessing fall around him like armor.

"I'll be back," he whispered. "I will. I swear it." He kissed her hand again and again. "Be safe, be safe, be safe."

"Don't worry," she said. "I'll take care of your little piece of soul. Like I take care of the rest of you."

He'd never felt like this before. Never wanted to pull a woman in and kiss her hair for hours, to stroke her with his fingers just to watch her climax. To wrap her up in his magic and stare at her forever. Bottle the light in her eyes.

Ridiculous, of course. Romance was only temporary insanity. Particularly with a mortal, and one so young. Like a drug, or a new branch of intoxicating magic. Surely the need he felt – the bliss – would fade. And when the time came, he would unhook his soul from hers without regret.

Probably.

For now, the connection didn't hurt. It was a spring of strength, a conduit for Rachel's happy, singing, sated spirit to fortify his own.

"Farewell," he said, and he vanished himself to Asgard, where Thor, Sif, and the Warriors Three stood waiting outside his chamber door.


	6. Hope

Rachel discovered she _could_ feel the connection to Loki from time to time over the months that followed. There would be moments when, walking down the street, she would be struck with blind panic, and know Loki was in the midst of battle.

There would be pulses. Frustration. Pride. Longing. Triumph.

The war, she knew, would be won, but Loki's role was involved and difficult. He was struggling. Missing her.

She loved the faint vibration in the back of her mind that told her he was there. That made her heart beat hard when he thought of her.

But all at once, nearly a year after his departure, the feelings vanished.

And Rachel became sick. Nauseous, weak-legged, sweaty and shaky.

She didn't leave the apartment for days, and could eat only plain rice.

She came to suspect Loki had died. The sensations, she reasoned, must be a result of the connection they shared. The piece of broken soul she carried inside her must be searching for its owner, and fading away, carrying part of her with it.

The thought was so overwhelming, she could hardly allow herself to feel it. What if she was right - but, worst thought of all, spent the rest of her life unsure?

Only a few tears came. She cried them onto Loki's pillow, and passed out in the middle of his enormous bed, wondering where she would go from here.

When she woke up, there was a child beside her.

A baby. Whole and healthy, not much larger than a newborn, staring at her with her own large brown eyes.

It was a girl. She had Loki's black hair and the beginnings of his sharp, intelligent features.

Her skin was cerulean blue.

Rachel held the baby to her chest and laughed and wept out loud in joy.

**The End**

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**A/N: Thank you for reading. Always review.**


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